Amateurism in Catalonia. Barcelona have bought Torres but don’t know yet whether they will be able to put him on the roster

Buy first, think later. That’s what Barcelona’s latest football purchases look like. Drowning in big financial problems, they brought in Ferran Torres for 65 million with bonuses. But they still don’t know if they can put him on the roster.

In the Spanish league, they are planning quite strict rules regarding the salary cap. The league will calculate it for each club before each season, based on the previous years’ accounts, so that the club does not overpay players and go bankrupt.

But Barcelona’s accounting in recent years has been appalling, almost amateurish. That’s why the La Liga management lowered the Blaugranas salary cap by 270 million euros. It was also the main reason Barcelona couldn’t sign Lionel Messi, who became a free agent in the summer.

But the management had already brought in Memphis Depay, Sergio Agüero and Eric García before, but they couldn’t sign them either because they wouldn’t fit into the salary cap. Thus, captains Gerard Piqué, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquéts had to have their salaries taken and play for free in order for the new reinforcements to be added to the roster.

But Barcelona didn’t learn their lesson. At the start of the winter transfer window, it brought in Ferran Torres from Manchester City for €55 million (+10 bonuses), but at the moment it cannot add him to the roster because there is no room under the salary cap.

They have to rely on the departures of the players who have the biggest salaries. Xavi has already informed Coutinho and Samuel Umtiti that they are not needed at Barcelona and they should look for a new club, but it won’t be that easy. The Catalans have been trying to get rid of the French stopper for a long time, but Umtiti doesn’t want to go anywhere and is enjoying his high salary. He is one of the highest paid players in the team.

Coutinho isn’t so stubborn, but he’s not exactly in the market either. His performances have dropped a lot and when you add his big salary, not many attractive offers will come to Camp Nou.

However, at least small steps that won’t help with the signing of Torres have already been planned by Barcelona. It will send Yusuf Demir, who was only on loan in Catalonia, back to Rapid Vienna. There was a €10 million mandatory buyout clause in his contract if he played 10 games. He has 9 of them, but then the management stopped his deployment to avoid having to pay this amount.

Luuk de Jong is the next to be dropped. The lanky striker came at the request of Ronald Koeman, but according to Xavi and just about everyone else, he is not suited to Barcelona’s style. So the Catalans are trying to find ways to cancel his loan move from Sevilla.

Either way, they have a lot of rotating to do at Camp Nou right now. If they fail to sell at least two players with big salaries, they can forget about putting Ferran Torres on the roster. And Barcelona will play their first game on January 2 at Mallorca.

Source: Sport, Diario AS